italian: una chiacchierata con GIBSH
Surfing the web gives us the possibility to constantly discover people that do very interesting stuff from all over the world. The coolest thing is that you can get in touch very easily with them, so as you can dialogue with anyone would use the power of social networking as a means towards the share of information and ideas.
This happened to me when scrolling down my Instagram board I saw GIBSH, an emergent brand from Ukraine, and I became immediately curious to know more about Dmitrij’s vision behind the dynamic balance between glittering colors and linear cuts, which bring light on a tenacious and bright woman.
We started chatting, and he explained to me that his collection is mostly oriented to young audiences. Particularly, the designer says that the idea of making dresses with white thread is inspired by ‘a young 16 year old girl who wants to go clubbing, but she is annoyed with her wardrobe and there is nothing sensible in the shops. Thus, she takes her dress and cuts off its top and inserts sweatshirts and T-shirts’.
A:First of all, I am curious to ask you where do you come from exactly? Did you grow up in Kiev or in a small city around it?D: I was born in Kiev, and this is my home city.
I would like to move our conversation on how much you, as a designer, think that growing up in a small/big city would impact on a creative mind?
D: I’ve seen talented people coming from small towns and saw mediocre ones living their lives in metropolitan areas. To me, the most important thing is just you, but not the luck to born and live your entire life somewhere in a cool place. Personally, I was for- med by contemporary art exhibitions, books but mostly by movies. In some periods of life, films were my God and they were not just an art house ones and their list was not limited within the names of directors, popular among creative people. I was formed by a film force, and by the force of fashion magazines. I love watching a cool movie and then mentally take its core story out and paste it in a situation I observed in real life in- stead. For example, a trivial queue in the supermarket. I take it and simply insert it into some cool mo- vie such as “The Pianist” with very good actress Isabelle Huppert. It’s fun. And I was very fond of making collages from “Vogue” photos – its pages were the best material.A: As it happened with us, nowadays the use of Social Media allows people not only to be in contact with their closer friends, but also to create an international space where we can observe others as well as they can “follow” our ideas. Some people are scared about this new way of communicating, others are excited about it. What’s your feeling about being born in a revolutionary moment such as this?D: It is a great luck to have social media as our communication tool. With you it became possible precisely because of all these technologies. I’ve never opposed Face- book and Instagram, all of them are important to me. I’ve been on Facebook and it is my field of life. I can talk, I can look, see, hear, read. You can see what I see. It turns out we are all looking at one common information field and this makes us a generation of people existing in one context, and thanks to this we interact each others and under- stand the inner world of familiar people. I call this the people of the same field. We see everything with our own eyes and look at the same DNA of reality. At least our human unity is expressed in this.
A: Now, let’s turn on your collection. You talked about a 16 year old girl that likes going to clubs. Thus, I am wondering about what kind of vibes surround the Kiev youth and entertainment? Do you think that nowadays youth is a determined stage of life, or is it more related to a state of mind?
D: Now in Kiev there is a very well developed dance music. We are called the New Berlin. But for me, we’ve just got creative young people who love good music and they want to live their lives with high- quality sounds and be well dressed. I am happy that the white socks are common on the streets and Adidas sneakers by Raf Simons are the cult for the young people. I’m also glad that they buy clothes in secondhand shops and mix them all in any way they want, and they don’t care about other people’s opinions. It is good when you feel yourself as the most unique and look like it as well. So as for me the club culture and fashion generate personalities with their own opinions.
A: Tell me about a city that in your opinion would represent better the global society.
D: I think there is no ideal cities like nobody is perfect. I think a person can complement any city and make his/her personal empire inside of it. Of course it’s idealistic. I’ve not been to many places but due to visual culture I understand a little what the world is.
A: Who are the designers you like the most and why?
D: Sometimes you look at clothes and think “what a perfect brain created it.” Of course, such feelings I got from Margiela, Hedi Slimane, Raf Simons, Riccardo Tisci, Miuccia Prada, Yoshji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, Phoebe Philo, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford and many other designers including Nike and Adidas. In general, the design world is quite positive and if you pay attention to the good ones, you can see a lot of beauty. The main thing is the ability to combine. As a stylist I worked with almost all brands on the sets and simply do not see any problems with clothes. To me, you just have to try to combine and mix everything in a cool way.
A: Do you think that nowadays fashion has the power to make people more concerned about global issues?
D: Yes of course clothes can tell you something important and give direction to the development of visual culture. They won’t stop the war, but can give a push for mass action to stop it. Clothing can be a protest and may become the mouthpiece. Clothing is always a culture and it is always a community and society language. It does not always bring understandable statement, but gives emotions to those who see you in clothes and to the people who wear clothes. Clothing always changes us, it just happens on a subconscious level, and this level is not always obvious. I think that for example McQueen’s collections have always been emotionally very strong and they’ve changed visual culture. Now Vetements, Raf Simons and many very talented designers and brands are changing it.
A: What’s you favorite movie?
D: Many years ago “The Hours” by Stephen Daldry caused a huge amount of interesting emotions and made me know myself better.
A: What’s your favorite song?
D: But of course if we call to mind DJ Marc Pinol, his track Edit Service 21 leaves no one indifferent. In general, I began to love listening to people’s voices. They do not realize how beautiful they can be. Just people, this is the most interesting. I am learning to see them in a special way.
A: If you could chose a hashtag that would define your personality, which one would you use?
D: #now
italian: una chiacchierata con GIBSH
ANTONIA 